Gadget of the Week

Turning Wi-Fi Into Wi-Fly

Two new base-station routers from Asus and Apple make the going great for Internet users.

As glamorous technologies go, home Wi-Fi must rate somewhere between indoor plumbing and a cordless phone. But upgrading your Wi-Fi base station—which provides the wireless link to the Internet service from your cable or phone company—will repay you immediately with faster, more reliable connections to your Wi-Fi-enabled phones, TVs, tablets, thermostats—you name it.

Our favorite base-station router is the Asus RT-AC66U. It speaks the latest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ac, also marketed as 5G Wi-Fi, which is theoretically even...